Schwinn Sales West
Cruisin' on my Bluebird
Ok, tonight we are going to discuss Spokes, and Lacing. But I think we need to review what we have already covered, and maybe discuss the topic of specialty tools a little deeper. If anyone has a question, better ask, because all of this is based on a good foundation of basic knowledge, before we get into white elephant in the room, Truing.
Last night we discussed pull up tools. Post #5, #8, #26 show examples of the manual screwdriver type tools. IMO, if you're going to build wheels, everyone needs one of these tools, the brand, or new/used does not matter because they all work the same.
In Post #2, #4 we showed the pull up bit that fits into an electric screwdriver. It's adjustable so you can set it to kick out at different tensions, but it does the very same thing the manual drivers do. Just some advice, it's best to adjust it so it "under tightens", then if you finish the first step and the "pull up is still too loose, you can reset the pull up bit depth. It's better to sneak up on the correct setting because if it's adjusted "too tight" your going to end up with "too much" spoke tension and likely an out of round wheel.
A quick word about manual versus power tools. They both do exactly the same thing, just one is faster. But, with a power tool you have the ability to screw up more stuff, and screw it up faster than using a manual tool. IMO, leave the power tools for the guys that need to build 20 to 50 wheels a day. I personally really like the adjustable pull up bits, but for the home builder that going to build a couple of pairs of wheels each year, time saved is not a big deal.
The most important building concept discussed last night was what I called the CROSS OVER pair of spokes. In a normal 36 spoke wheel, there's nine pairs of CROSS OVER spokes. You need to be able to quickly find these pairs of spokes. You will be tightening the nine pairs of CROSS OVER spokes first, then you will be tightening the remaining nine pair of spokes second. By breaking up the spokes that you pull up, you will save a lot of time when you finally get to the actual hand truing. A wheel built this way will be 80% to 90% true "side to side, round, hub centered in the rim, and if you chose the correct length spokes it will be tensioned to 80%. Look at Post #29, photo #2 for a reference photo of the Cross Over spokes. The concept of the Cross Over spokes is not new, it's not my idea. It was taught to me by Stan Natanek the Schwinn Service School instructor 60 years ago. It works, please give it a try on your next wheel build. All I ask is when it works, is for you say Thank You, to Stan.
SPOKES and LACING Night #2
I do not want to discuss spoke brands, because it's a very personal choice. IMO, all the brands currently available are good quality. I want to discuss spokes in general. They make many different gauges from very lightweight butted spokes which are usually standard thickness on the ends and butted (some say swaged) down to a smaller gauge in the middle. The strength failure point of a spoke is at the bent end. If you break a spoke, 99% of the time it's at the bend, unless something went into a moving wheel. You can get away with really lightweight spokes as long as the bent ends are large enough to carry the load.
Spoke gauges. I would call a 14 ga spoke (.080") as what we would all consider as a normal every day spoke. They come in steel with a galvanized coating. When you look at old vintage Torrington spokes and they are dull grey, it's this galvanized finish that has degraded. I totally get the vintage thing, you use them if you have to to keep the bike all original. But a nice new set of stainless steel spokes will look much better and for a longer period of time. If your lucky enough to be able to ride your bike at the salty beach areas, you will come to appreciate stainless steel spokes.
The next spoke gauge will be 15/16/17 (thinner) gauges. They might be straight gauge from one end to the other, or they could be either single butted, or double butted. You will find them in many name brands. One piece of advice, do not mix up your spokes, just because they are all the same length, does not make them the same, I'm concerned about the thread size, and different brands take different nipples. it's just simpler to adopt the rule, do not mix your spokes.
Spoke treads are rolled onto the spoke, they are not cut into a spoke. If you look closely, and run your finger down the spoke, the threads are larger than the wire gauge which is caused by the thread rolling process. You can see a Phil Wood spoke cutting and thread rolling machine in Post #50. Like they say about asking the price of a sailboat, if you have to ask, you likely will not be able to afford it. That's true with the Phil Wood spoke cutter/threader. We bought one back in the 1970's and it was expensive even then. Phil also makes/made? a really cool spoke length calculator. It had fiberglass rods to make measuring rim diameter easy.
The point that needs to be made, DO NOT mix up your spoke nipples. Keep the nipples with the spokes they were shipped with. It's hard to look at a nipple and know for certain what gauge and brand spoke it goes with. Obviously, a smaller nipple will not fit onto a larger gauge spoke. BUT you can put a larger 14ga nipple on a smaller 15ga or 16ga spoke. You will figure it all out about halfway through the truing stage when you begin to increase the wheel tension and they start stripping. Rule, DO NOT mix you spokes, OR your nipples. In PRO SHOPS like our shop, we had large coffee cans with each gauge size, nipple length, and brand. We just dumped the nipples into the correct coffee can, but it not a good practice for the "occasional, home wheel builder", it will get you in trouble.
Nipple lengths, come in many different lengths. The reason is because rims come in different styles. For example if your building a set of race wheels with "wood filled" aluminum sew ups, the spoke hole thickness will require "long nipples". If building old Birch wood rims you need "really long nipples to reach through the rim, and still have enough nipple showing to turn it with your spoke wrench. Some sew up rims are hollow, and have no spoke ferrules. These require Nipple washers be installed during the lacing step. The manual nipple pull up drivers are very handy for this because they reach into the hollow rim to turn the nipple. If you do not have the spoke nipple washers, you can find 1/8" aluminum pop rivet washers that will work for this purpose. The nipple length is driven by the type of rim you are using. Use the shortest nipple that will work with your rim for the lightest weight. Aluminum nipples are cool because of the colors available, and the weight savings, but they are a PITA because they easily round off.
Interlacing is something that is common on lightweight wheels. It's where the on last spoke crossing before the nipple, the spokes are reverse positioned, so they have tension against each other. It makes the wheel stiffer, common on racing wheels. It's been done for the last 100 years.
Grinding Nipples. When building sew up wheels with "filled rims" it is sometimes necessary to slightly grind or relieve. the end of the nipple to allow the sew up tire to seat on the rim.
Spoke "Tie, and Solder", kind of goes with the interlacing idea. At that same intersecting point, the spoke cross has very light gauge galvanized beading wire wrapped around the spokes, then the wire and the spokes are soldered together to make the wheel stiffer. It's best to use acid core solder and liquid soldering acid with a small torch flame. You will find this was done to almost all of the old track bikes. The very old wood rims have almost no "side to side" stiffness, the interlace, and the tie and solder helped the low strength rims.
Spoke Nipper, See Post #6. Sooner or later, your going to have a wheel with one or two spokes that have the threads come through the end of the nipple. The spoke nipper tool in the photo is made specifically to remove the very short stub of spoke threads. Note that the two cutting ends DO NOT align. You position the long cutter end against the inside of the rim. The shorter cutter end is positioned at the butt end of the spoke nipple. The exposed spoke threads are positioned between the two cutters. You hold the nipper with one hand tightly against the rim, and squeeze the tool with your other hand, and if your technique was good, it cuts the excess spoke threads off flush with the end of the nipple. Kind of a crude tool, but it's a very handy tool, and has been around for 100 years. The end cutter, and file GT sent us in Post #22 will work, but the spoke nipper is fast, and does a smooth cut. The end nipper in Post #22 is going to leave a sharp edge on the spoke which will require the file to finish, or you will have a flat tire.
WORD OF CAUTION, keep in mind that you only have something like one half of an inch of threads on your spoke. If you used the wrong size spoke and had to cut say one quarter of an inch off, because it was sticking out of the end of the nipple, you now have only one quarter of an inch of spoke threads. The spoke nipper is meant to cut off a few extra threads, not a bunch of extra spoke length. Two wrongs' do not make a right.
Here's one subject with a lot of different opinions.
Nipple lubricant, or thread lock on the spoke threads? I have done both, and I think you need to consider what you are building. Aluminum rims come in many different types. They boil down to "with, or without" ferrules. If you have non ferrule aluminum rims, and aluminum nipples, they tend to gall as soon as you get much tension into the wheel. This obviously makes truing difficult because the nipples are hard to turn. We used to have a small lid filled with Phil Wood oil, it is very thick, heavy viscosity. It sticks and stays on what you put it on. We would take a handful of spokes and dip the spoke threads into the Phil oil before we filled the hub with spokes. Then lace the wheel, and before you pull it up, drop one small drop of oil on the outer side of the nipple before your Pull Up, and Truing. If you oil the nipples before you lace the wheel, it's just too messy.
A totally different school says no to the oil, and embraces the thread lock products. DT made a spoke nipple thread lock that you put on the nipple after it was laced, but before the truing step. It was a very thin liquid sealer that wicked it's way into the threads between the spoke and the nipple. It hardened, preventing vibration from letting the nipple to loose tension. Loctite also sells thread lock products. You want to use a thread lock product that allows you to loosen the spoke nipple if future truing should become necessary. In Loctite, that's a green, or blue product, NOT red which hardens. Not all thread lock brands use the same colors to denote if their product is hard, or soft setting. Make sure exactly what product your using if you go with this route.
A Dedicated Wheel Building area. In a shop, this is a requirement, keep all of your specialty tools together. For the home builder it might not be practical. My advice is to fabricate a wheel building board. About three foot square piece of 3/4" plywood would be great. If your bucks up, cover it with a piece of hard Masonite board, or even a piece of Wilsonart, or Formica laminate. The hard counter top surfaces will not scratch your painted rims. Drill two holes in your new board. The hole locations will be dependent on the wheel sizes you will be building. Basically, you want the hub axle to fit loosely into the hole, and the wheel rim to be a few inches "off the board" so you can reach the spokes from both above and below the board. You going to sit the board on a normal yard garbage can, or saw horse's. This will give you a dedicated wheel building space, and you can sit down while building. Some people build their wheels with the wheel stand up, I have never been able to comfortably do that. For me, it needs to lay down, the hub needs to fit into something that holds it from falling over with the spokes in the hub. You can even use this same board to mount your wheel truing stand. A couple of holes and some bolts with wing nuts and your golden.
Schwinn did a very good job of showing the hub spoke filling, the lacing, and the truing steps in their 1969-72 Service Manuals. They were able to light shade the photos to make it easier to find just the parts they were explaining. I highly recommend that resource to anyone having problems with wheel lacing. I'm sure it has already been posted somewhere on the CABE.
Here's the most common problems areas with lacing.
Look closely at your rim. Find the valve hole. Notice that the spoke holes on each side of the valve hole are drilled about .060" off of center. That makes each alternating spoke hole about 1/8" off from each other. You have to make sure when lacing that the hub flange spoke is orientated to go into the correct offset rim spoke hole.
Make certain that you have spokes that are parallel to the valve stem, NOT crossing over the top of the valve stem making it difficult to put air into your tire.
Please do not try to do a cross 3 and a cross 4 in the same wheel. There's no need for this if you find the correct spoke hole to start your second hub flange lacing.
Tomorrow night we will discuss, truing stands. How to check the alignment of your Park truing stand, and how easy it is to reset it if it's off. What's the number one issue with a Park truing stand. How to use a wheel centering gauge. How to make your own centering gauge. Wheel truing in general.
Any questions, please ask.
John
Last night we discussed pull up tools. Post #5, #8, #26 show examples of the manual screwdriver type tools. IMO, if you're going to build wheels, everyone needs one of these tools, the brand, or new/used does not matter because they all work the same.
In Post #2, #4 we showed the pull up bit that fits into an electric screwdriver. It's adjustable so you can set it to kick out at different tensions, but it does the very same thing the manual drivers do. Just some advice, it's best to adjust it so it "under tightens", then if you finish the first step and the "pull up is still too loose, you can reset the pull up bit depth. It's better to sneak up on the correct setting because if it's adjusted "too tight" your going to end up with "too much" spoke tension and likely an out of round wheel.
A quick word about manual versus power tools. They both do exactly the same thing, just one is faster. But, with a power tool you have the ability to screw up more stuff, and screw it up faster than using a manual tool. IMO, leave the power tools for the guys that need to build 20 to 50 wheels a day. I personally really like the adjustable pull up bits, but for the home builder that going to build a couple of pairs of wheels each year, time saved is not a big deal.
The most important building concept discussed last night was what I called the CROSS OVER pair of spokes. In a normal 36 spoke wheel, there's nine pairs of CROSS OVER spokes. You need to be able to quickly find these pairs of spokes. You will be tightening the nine pairs of CROSS OVER spokes first, then you will be tightening the remaining nine pair of spokes second. By breaking up the spokes that you pull up, you will save a lot of time when you finally get to the actual hand truing. A wheel built this way will be 80% to 90% true "side to side, round, hub centered in the rim, and if you chose the correct length spokes it will be tensioned to 80%. Look at Post #29, photo #2 for a reference photo of the Cross Over spokes. The concept of the Cross Over spokes is not new, it's not my idea. It was taught to me by Stan Natanek the Schwinn Service School instructor 60 years ago. It works, please give it a try on your next wheel build. All I ask is when it works, is for you say Thank You, to Stan.
SPOKES and LACING Night #2
I do not want to discuss spoke brands, because it's a very personal choice. IMO, all the brands currently available are good quality. I want to discuss spokes in general. They make many different gauges from very lightweight butted spokes which are usually standard thickness on the ends and butted (some say swaged) down to a smaller gauge in the middle. The strength failure point of a spoke is at the bent end. If you break a spoke, 99% of the time it's at the bend, unless something went into a moving wheel. You can get away with really lightweight spokes as long as the bent ends are large enough to carry the load.
Spoke gauges. I would call a 14 ga spoke (.080") as what we would all consider as a normal every day spoke. They come in steel with a galvanized coating. When you look at old vintage Torrington spokes and they are dull grey, it's this galvanized finish that has degraded. I totally get the vintage thing, you use them if you have to to keep the bike all original. But a nice new set of stainless steel spokes will look much better and for a longer period of time. If your lucky enough to be able to ride your bike at the salty beach areas, you will come to appreciate stainless steel spokes.
The next spoke gauge will be 15/16/17 (thinner) gauges. They might be straight gauge from one end to the other, or they could be either single butted, or double butted. You will find them in many name brands. One piece of advice, do not mix up your spokes, just because they are all the same length, does not make them the same, I'm concerned about the thread size, and different brands take different nipples. it's just simpler to adopt the rule, do not mix your spokes.
Spoke treads are rolled onto the spoke, they are not cut into a spoke. If you look closely, and run your finger down the spoke, the threads are larger than the wire gauge which is caused by the thread rolling process. You can see a Phil Wood spoke cutting and thread rolling machine in Post #50. Like they say about asking the price of a sailboat, if you have to ask, you likely will not be able to afford it. That's true with the Phil Wood spoke cutter/threader. We bought one back in the 1970's and it was expensive even then. Phil also makes/made? a really cool spoke length calculator. It had fiberglass rods to make measuring rim diameter easy.
The point that needs to be made, DO NOT mix up your spoke nipples. Keep the nipples with the spokes they were shipped with. It's hard to look at a nipple and know for certain what gauge and brand spoke it goes with. Obviously, a smaller nipple will not fit onto a larger gauge spoke. BUT you can put a larger 14ga nipple on a smaller 15ga or 16ga spoke. You will figure it all out about halfway through the truing stage when you begin to increase the wheel tension and they start stripping. Rule, DO NOT mix you spokes, OR your nipples. In PRO SHOPS like our shop, we had large coffee cans with each gauge size, nipple length, and brand. We just dumped the nipples into the correct coffee can, but it not a good practice for the "occasional, home wheel builder", it will get you in trouble.
Nipple lengths, come in many different lengths. The reason is because rims come in different styles. For example if your building a set of race wheels with "wood filled" aluminum sew ups, the spoke hole thickness will require "long nipples". If building old Birch wood rims you need "really long nipples to reach through the rim, and still have enough nipple showing to turn it with your spoke wrench. Some sew up rims are hollow, and have no spoke ferrules. These require Nipple washers be installed during the lacing step. The manual nipple pull up drivers are very handy for this because they reach into the hollow rim to turn the nipple. If you do not have the spoke nipple washers, you can find 1/8" aluminum pop rivet washers that will work for this purpose. The nipple length is driven by the type of rim you are using. Use the shortest nipple that will work with your rim for the lightest weight. Aluminum nipples are cool because of the colors available, and the weight savings, but they are a PITA because they easily round off.
Interlacing is something that is common on lightweight wheels. It's where the on last spoke crossing before the nipple, the spokes are reverse positioned, so they have tension against each other. It makes the wheel stiffer, common on racing wheels. It's been done for the last 100 years.
Grinding Nipples. When building sew up wheels with "filled rims" it is sometimes necessary to slightly grind or relieve. the end of the nipple to allow the sew up tire to seat on the rim.
Spoke "Tie, and Solder", kind of goes with the interlacing idea. At that same intersecting point, the spoke cross has very light gauge galvanized beading wire wrapped around the spokes, then the wire and the spokes are soldered together to make the wheel stiffer. It's best to use acid core solder and liquid soldering acid with a small torch flame. You will find this was done to almost all of the old track bikes. The very old wood rims have almost no "side to side" stiffness, the interlace, and the tie and solder helped the low strength rims.
Spoke Nipper, See Post #6. Sooner or later, your going to have a wheel with one or two spokes that have the threads come through the end of the nipple. The spoke nipper tool in the photo is made specifically to remove the very short stub of spoke threads. Note that the two cutting ends DO NOT align. You position the long cutter end against the inside of the rim. The shorter cutter end is positioned at the butt end of the spoke nipple. The exposed spoke threads are positioned between the two cutters. You hold the nipper with one hand tightly against the rim, and squeeze the tool with your other hand, and if your technique was good, it cuts the excess spoke threads off flush with the end of the nipple. Kind of a crude tool, but it's a very handy tool, and has been around for 100 years. The end cutter, and file GT sent us in Post #22 will work, but the spoke nipper is fast, and does a smooth cut. The end nipper in Post #22 is going to leave a sharp edge on the spoke which will require the file to finish, or you will have a flat tire.
WORD OF CAUTION, keep in mind that you only have something like one half of an inch of threads on your spoke. If you used the wrong size spoke and had to cut say one quarter of an inch off, because it was sticking out of the end of the nipple, you now have only one quarter of an inch of spoke threads. The spoke nipper is meant to cut off a few extra threads, not a bunch of extra spoke length. Two wrongs' do not make a right.
Here's one subject with a lot of different opinions.
Nipple lubricant, or thread lock on the spoke threads? I have done both, and I think you need to consider what you are building. Aluminum rims come in many different types. They boil down to "with, or without" ferrules. If you have non ferrule aluminum rims, and aluminum nipples, they tend to gall as soon as you get much tension into the wheel. This obviously makes truing difficult because the nipples are hard to turn. We used to have a small lid filled with Phil Wood oil, it is very thick, heavy viscosity. It sticks and stays on what you put it on. We would take a handful of spokes and dip the spoke threads into the Phil oil before we filled the hub with spokes. Then lace the wheel, and before you pull it up, drop one small drop of oil on the outer side of the nipple before your Pull Up, and Truing. If you oil the nipples before you lace the wheel, it's just too messy.
A totally different school says no to the oil, and embraces the thread lock products. DT made a spoke nipple thread lock that you put on the nipple after it was laced, but before the truing step. It was a very thin liquid sealer that wicked it's way into the threads between the spoke and the nipple. It hardened, preventing vibration from letting the nipple to loose tension. Loctite also sells thread lock products. You want to use a thread lock product that allows you to loosen the spoke nipple if future truing should become necessary. In Loctite, that's a green, or blue product, NOT red which hardens. Not all thread lock brands use the same colors to denote if their product is hard, or soft setting. Make sure exactly what product your using if you go with this route.
A Dedicated Wheel Building area. In a shop, this is a requirement, keep all of your specialty tools together. For the home builder it might not be practical. My advice is to fabricate a wheel building board. About three foot square piece of 3/4" plywood would be great. If your bucks up, cover it with a piece of hard Masonite board, or even a piece of Wilsonart, or Formica laminate. The hard counter top surfaces will not scratch your painted rims. Drill two holes in your new board. The hole locations will be dependent on the wheel sizes you will be building. Basically, you want the hub axle to fit loosely into the hole, and the wheel rim to be a few inches "off the board" so you can reach the spokes from both above and below the board. You going to sit the board on a normal yard garbage can, or saw horse's. This will give you a dedicated wheel building space, and you can sit down while building. Some people build their wheels with the wheel stand up, I have never been able to comfortably do that. For me, it needs to lay down, the hub needs to fit into something that holds it from falling over with the spokes in the hub. You can even use this same board to mount your wheel truing stand. A couple of holes and some bolts with wing nuts and your golden.
Schwinn did a very good job of showing the hub spoke filling, the lacing, and the truing steps in their 1969-72 Service Manuals. They were able to light shade the photos to make it easier to find just the parts they were explaining. I highly recommend that resource to anyone having problems with wheel lacing. I'm sure it has already been posted somewhere on the CABE.
Here's the most common problems areas with lacing.
Look closely at your rim. Find the valve hole. Notice that the spoke holes on each side of the valve hole are drilled about .060" off of center. That makes each alternating spoke hole about 1/8" off from each other. You have to make sure when lacing that the hub flange spoke is orientated to go into the correct offset rim spoke hole.
Make certain that you have spokes that are parallel to the valve stem, NOT crossing over the top of the valve stem making it difficult to put air into your tire.
Please do not try to do a cross 3 and a cross 4 in the same wheel. There's no need for this if you find the correct spoke hole to start your second hub flange lacing.
Tomorrow night we will discuss, truing stands. How to check the alignment of your Park truing stand, and how easy it is to reset it if it's off. What's the number one issue with a Park truing stand. How to use a wheel centering gauge. How to make your own centering gauge. Wheel truing in general.
Any questions, please ask.
John
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